The day for me to come home is nearing and I am starting to think about riding more and more so I started thinking about rides that I want to accomplish when I get home. I know Sturgis and the Black Hills Rally is out of the question for me this year and probably for 2010 (be back in the sandbox by then probably)  but here are some of the other rides I have been thinking about doing;

1. Tail of the Dragon (Deals Gap). Just getting to this one will be a days ride. I will probably leave from Clarksville early one morning (real early) and head down to my dads house.  There my dad and brother will join me and we will head up to choo choo (Chattanooga). From there we will take some back roads over to the Dragon. After the dragon we will probably cut through the woods back to I59 and head home. Not sure of the mileage but I figure once I get back to my dads on that day I will probably have racked up 600 or more miles. There will be no way I will head back home, heck that would be another 250 miles.
2. Museums; I want to hit a few of the big motorcycle museums out there. The first is going to be Barbers. It is in Birmingham so that will be another long little ride and another where I will pick the brother and my dad up (the house is on the way). The museum has a ton of old bikes and a raceway. Maybe I can plan my trip around when they have the vintage races.  Another museum I want to see is wheels through time but it looks like it may be closed, I am going to get more info on that as soon as I can but the site says that they are closing on November 30th 2008. The next one I will try to see is the new one, the H-D museum but I also want to try and tour the factory when I go. Milwaukee might be a little bit of a trip to just spend a few hours in a museum.
3. Iron Butt; Don’t know what my route would be but I want to try and knock this out in ’09. Nothing like trying to ride 1000 miles in 24 hours to give you a sore ass.
4. Octoberfest; I am not sure if I will be back in time for bike week in March and even if I am I might not be able to go at that time but I am going to still try and catch one of the events in Daytona this year.
5. Last one I want to do and have been wanting to do for a while is Jazz Festival, New Orleans in April. I figure I could ride down on  Thursday (23d) and stay through Sunday. That weekend Drive-By Truckers, Etta James, and Robert Cray will be playing. The bad thing is the next weekend that have a bunch of other artists playing that I want to see too like Aretha Franklin, Buddy Guy, and John Mayall. Now believe me there are many other groups playing, it is just that there are so many I couldn’t even read them all before my eyes hurt much less write them down here. looking at the prices though I may have to save up for a little while to be able to afford it. I guess we will have to see.

Well that’s my list. That is not all of the riding I am going to try and get done but it is some of the big ones that I want to get knocked out. I may even try and take another trip to Beale street with a few friends and spend the weekend listening to blues and swilling beer. Head on over to the forums and tell us the rides you have planned for 2009. Until next time get out and ride and when you can come back and tell us about it in the biker forums.